Sonic Colors Ultimate Review Scores Thread

[NoKaine]

7 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I'm still hoping Colours will still be a decent enough success to convince SEGA that remastering other games can be a viable option moving forward too. I really wanna see Unleashed and Generations get ports to further consoles too.

Colors will do well, no doubt. Comfortable release, new Sonic game in years, new well-reviewed Sonic game in years, 10 years of good word-of-mouth... it won't reach the original though.

However, Generations has even less reason to be remastered since it's already HD and Unleashed would require a nigh-remake to shape up.

They did Colors because honestly it's an easy sale. Take the only "Only Good 3D Sonic Game^TM" on SD consoles, polish it, ba-boom.

Generations and Unleashed are on the opposite ends of the spectrum of "effort-to-reward" and would take too much effort for similar returns. Usually why SEGA doesn't really do Sonic remasters in the first place. Few games in the series are worth remastering over remaking.

[User18091994]

39 minutes ago, azoo said:

There is no bias against Sonic reviews in the greater populace. Maybe the only game in the series that got the shit end of the deal was Unleashed, which was not only over-scrutinized as the follow-up to 06 but also ranked under the (obviously inferior) Wii version.

If anything, some reviewers in the past have had tendency to be too kind to the games. Forces getting middling reception overall was generous! And don't even get me started on Sonic 4: Episode 1! lol

I respect your opinion, but I totally disagree. I think recently, Sonic games are having a more fair reception because it's getting old to just hate on the franchise all the time. Sonic Forces had a pretty fair metascore. The fan base acts like the game is as bad as Sonic 2006, when in the reality it's not even close to be one of the worst Sonic games ever release. It's forgettable and uninspired, but it's pretty average for the modern standards of the gaming industry.

When it comes to past Sonic games, in my opinion, they used to be heavily criticized for their mistakes, while their good points were underestimated. Saying a game is underrated it's not the same thing as saying it's a masterpiece or even that it's good.
 

34 minutes ago, NoKaine said:

Generations got short-staffed in my opinion, it should have a higher score than Colors.

Otherwise yeah, 77 is perfectly good for a perfectly good game. Honestly it is probably a bigger indictment to the remaster's lack of improvement than the original game that it didn't score better. Critics clearly believe it held up and that was the best the game and SEGA could ask for.

I don't even understand how that reviewed better than Episode 2. It's like they suddenly realized the first wasn't actually that good and took it out on the sequel.

Not like Episode 2 is a masterpiece anyway but it's certainly an improvement.

I think the 77 metascore for Sonic Colors Ultimate it's fine, but the original Colors deserved more. When games get re-release they usually get lower scores from the critics. Colors Ultimate having almost the same praise as the original shows how the original was underrated.

32 minutes ago, Tornado said:

Pokemon fans seem to think that Sw/Sh were pretty terrible regardless. There's a reason every single comment section or forum topic about the games turned into a shithole immediately and why people actively were saying how much they were looking forward to Snap 2 and etc because Game Freak wasn't making them.

Well, so the Pokémon fan base is right after all, and the game is really overrated by the critics.

32 minutes ago, Tornado said:

Sw/Sh still has fucking nothing to do with Sonic Colors. They aren't in the same genre. They aren't in the same franchise. They aren't competitors in any way; retarded Sonic Twitter posts aside. Your arguments thus far in this thread are just as dumb as the ones on Twitter last year when people were dabbing on The Last of Us franchise as being an objectively worse one than Tony Hawk's Pro Skater; except people were doing it then to get a rise out of people up their own ass about TLoU II's review scores and you seem to thing it's a legitimate talking point.

I've never made a direct comparison between Sonic Colors and Pokémon Sw/Sh, I used as an example of how different the critics treat franchises like Pokémon.

32 minutes ago, Tornado said:

It's no more a conspiracy that Pokemon Sw/Sh got slapped with an 80 when it's pretty bad than it is that fucking Sonic 4 Episode 1 ended up with an 81 when it's fucking atrocious.

Well, when I first brought this argument, I said 2D Sonic games that appeal to nostalgia are exceptions because the critics usually overestimate them. I said:

Quote

The only exception is when the games are 2D and full of nostalgia for the classic era, such as Sonic Mania.

Sonic 4 Episode 1 is an example of this kind of behavior. It's one of the weakest entries in the history of the Sonic franchise, but got great scores just because it's a call back to the Genesis days.

[Wraith]

Every time I've been around for a new Sonic release, people always ask why the metacritic isn't higher. Some people aren't going to be happy until Sonic is doing Mario numbers, but if that's what you're looking for you should be bothering Sonic team and not the review outlets.

I don't tend to agree with the mainstream reception of most Sonic games, but I'd say it's because they rate them too high.  They tend to score easier games that don't "resist" the player that much better than more difficult games, so I'd say most modern Sonic games get propped up higher than I would rate them for that reason.

Sonic Unleashed is the only time I thought they scored a game too low and even then...I can't argue with it that much. The game needed another polishing pass. No way around it. It wasn't 06 buggy, but it wasn't in an acceptable state on release and you deserve to have points taken off for that imo. Some of the arguments they levied at the game for it's difficulty were poor, but I also read more than one review of Colors that mentioned difficulty spikes so I've just accepted I'm out of touch there.

[Indigo Rush]

I think there may be significant overlap between "difficulty spikes" and "cumbersome 2D platforming above bottomless pits," if not outright conflation of the two. Even the more glowing reviews of Colors in 2010 received that criticism, and I think that's why Tails Save was added: a proactive attempt to nip that complaint out of Ultimate. That may make it a bit less frustrating, but it doesn't fix the core problem of by-the-numbers block hopping where more momentum-based curves and ramps ought to be. It definitely hasn't killed things, as the game is reviewing decently regardless, so that's all SEGA's looking for. Be concerned about SEGA/Sonic Team relying on infinite lives to excuse this sort of level design in the future. 

[User18091994]

20 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Spoiler

Every time I've been around for a new Sonic release, people always ask why the metacritic isn't higher. Some people aren't going to be happy until Sonic is doing Mario numbers, but if that's what you're looking for you should be bothering Sonic team and not the review outlets.

I don't tend to agree with the mainstream reception of most Sonic games, but I'd say it's because they rate them too high.  They tend to score easier games that don't "resist" the player that much better than more difficult games, so I'd say most modern Sonic games get propped up higher than I would rate them for that reason.

Sonic Unleashed is the only time I thought they scored a game too low and even then...I can't argue with it that much. The game needed another polishing pass. No way around it. It wasn't 06 buggy, but it wasn't in an acceptable state on release and you deserve to have points taken off for that imo. Some of the arguments they levied at the game for it's difficulty were poor, but I also read more than one review of Colors that mentioned difficulty spikes so I've just accepted I'm out of touch there.

 

A game being easy isn't the same thing as being bad. There are a lot of amazing games with easy difficulties. Most Mario 3D games are very easy. I've never had a game over on Mario Galaxy. Would it make sense if I say the game it's bad just because of that? This is a shallow criterion.

In my opinion, Sonic games are overrated or underrated, depending on the point of view. And as I said before, saying a game is underrated it's not the same thing as saying it's flawless. Take Sonic Lost World, for example, I think it's a very decent above average 3D platformer, it controls fine, the graphics are amazing and smooth, the animations are really well-crafted. That means the game is perfect? No, there are a lot of issues, some stages have inconsistent level design, sometimes the game feels more like a Mario game than a Sonic game, the story is awful and poorly written, etc. But I don't agree that Sonic Lost World is a bad game just because it's not an ideal Sonic experience, and I wouldn't even say the game is slow.

When it comes to other modern Sonic games, I think Generations and Colors are underrated if you consider the metascore both games got when they were released, but I think they are overrated when people say they are: "the best 3D sonic games ever made" or "the best Sonic games since the Genesis", because games like Unleashed and even Sonic Heroes are better in my opinion.

[KHCast]

4 hours ago, Tornado said:

Yeah the original Destructoid review was that horseshit review from Sterling when he was smack in the middle of his "Internet troll with media credentials" phase; where he would scour the internet the most disingenuous argument he could find about a topic so he could write an article to blow it out of proportion and then publicly mock specific people's reactions to the nonsense he wrote by writing editorials about that.

 

 

 

That was also the review where Sega mocked him for it in response by taking one of those ~50 foot banners they hung from the rafters at some convention center for Colors and sending it to his house.

Just as a reminder, Sterling is non-binary and goes by “they”/“them”

 

I funnily enough, asked them recently if they were gonna cover the game again since one of their biggest complaints was the wii mote, and they seemed a lot more open and optimistic about this since it’s controls now are more in line with a standard boost game. They’ve certainly mellowed out much more towards certain games they gave a hard time in the past, and had admitted they went through a shitty cringe edge phase, so got my fingers crossed they’re a bit more fair to Colors this time around if they do a Jimpressions on it. Especially when they openly loved forces in the face of everyone hating it lol

 

 

As for my own thoughts on the reviews, eh, they’re about what I expected. I maybe expected a few points lower, so I’m around that ballpark. We’ll see how it changes in the next few days tho 

[JezMM]

2 hours ago, Wraith said:

I don't know, bog standard 2D platforming and a low amount of content compared to most other games makes me surprised it snuck that high up the totem pole twice in a row. If you ask me a score that reflected Sonic Colors's quality would be lower.

I agree, but I'm not surprised.  The thing about Colours is that it's a crowd-pleaser, and sometimes crowd-pleaser and "bog standard" can absolutely go hand-in-hand.  But when you're THAT type of crowd-pleaser, I think the critics sort of know it isn't as great as it should be... and that's why it's scraping 70-80 while genuinely great games that could just as well be described as crowd-pleasers like your Marios and Zeldas tend to score 90-100.  Just like the original, Colours is a game that visually has all the expected Sonic thrills, but is relatively unchallenging and regularly utilises fairly shallow power-ups to give an impression of depth which isn't really there, but luckily for reviewing purposes, it kinda takes a second or third playthrough to notice. (And... I guess you could argue that's fine in it's own way, I too adored my initial playthrough of Colours and only found it lacking when I, as a hardcore fan, started to really dig into what else it had to offer (not much).

 

The music situation is buckwild though, I'm astonishingly frustrated by the decisions they made there.  Since I'll be playing on PC, I hope modders can get on swapping the old and new music around as quick as possible.

[User18091994]

3 minutes ago, JezMM said:

I agree, but I'm not surprised.  The thing about Colours is that it's a crowd-pleaser, and sometimes crowd-pleaser and "bog standard" can absolutely go hand-in-hand.  But when you're THAT type of crowd-pleaser, I think the critics sort of know it isn't as great as it should be... and that's why it's scraping 70-80 while genuinely great games that could just as well be described as crowd-pleasers like your Marios and Zeldas tend to score 90-100.  Just like the original, Colours is a game that visually has all the expected Sonic thrills, but is relatively unchallenging and regularly utilises fairly shallow power-ups to give an impression of depth which isn't really there, but luckily for reviewing purposes, it kinda takes a second or third playthrough to notice. And... I guess you could argue that's fine in it's own way, I too adored my initial playthrough of Colours and only found it lacking when I, as a hardcore fan, started to really dig into what else it had to offer (not much).

Colors power ups as just as shallow as Mario Galaxy power ups. On Mario Galaxy, the power ups are very situational, they are only used in specific sections to solve specific puzzles in only one way available, and they also only last a few seconds. It's the same thing as the wisps. I don't see why Mario Galaxy power ups should have more praise than the Wisps.

[NoKaine]

It's not "scraping" 70-80, it's consistently getting 80s, 8/10, 4/5s, with the occasional 6/10 or even 5/10 which drag down its score a bit.

8/10 to the vast majority of people is a pretty good, even great game to most people. Coming only a few points down from 8 average is pretty good. 

[Wraith]

1 hour ago, Raphael Martins said:

A game being easy isn't the same thing as being bad. There are a lot of amazing games with easy difficulties. Most Mario 3D games are very easy. I've never had a game over on Mario Galaxy. Would it make sense if I say the game it's bad just because of that? This is a shallow criterion.
 

I don't think it is. Difficulty is an important part of a game's depth and staying power, which it's why it's been instrumental to Mario's success since the 80s. Even the Mario games that aren't very difficult to complete usually have shortcuts, techniques, self imposed challenges and other ways to play that are difficult to perform to keep you coming back. Sonic Colors doesn't lend itself well to this approach, nor does it have many traditionally difficult challenges to enjoy, so I mark it down.

You might disagree, but for me, struggle is a fundamental part of play. I'm not that into the raw power fantasy of Sonic running fast and smashing everything. I need something more.

[User18091994]

2 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I don't think it is. Difficulty is an important part of a game's depth and staying power, which it's why it's been instrumental to Mario's success since the 80s. Even the Mario games that aren't very difficult to complete usually have shortcuts, techniques, self imposed challenges and other ways to play that are difficult to perform to keep you coming back. Sonic Colors doesn't lend itself well to this approach, nor does it have many traditionally difficult challenges to enjoy, so I mark it down.

You might disagree, but for me, struggle is a fundamental part of play. I'm not that into the raw power fantasy of Sonic running fast and smashing everything. I need something more.

Sonic Colors also has shortcuts and alternative paths in the stages, you have to explore the stages and use the wisps to get the red rings and S-ranks. In this game, you are rewarded with exploration, you don't get S-ranks if you only go to the end of the stage as fast as you can, you earn bonus points from collecting the red rings and using the color powers. The Wisps lead Sonic to different sections and hidden locations on the stage.

Sonic Colors is as easy as Mario Galaxy and most 3D Mario games. Also, there are a lot of Nintendo games that are even more easy than Sonic Colors, such as the Kirby games. All of them get high scores and praise by the critics.

[Sonicka]

It’s great to see that this game still holds up for what it’s worth. 

Whilst my personal bias still rates the original title on Wii as a solid 8.5 - 9.0 I think the reviews are certainly on point. But on the whole it’s nice to see (at least from a Metacritic veiewpoint) that Sonic is reaching for those stars again, it’s been a while since Sonic Mania.

I think it’s also safe to say now that this isn’t the ‘Sonic Adventure DX downgrade’ comparable porting worry that some were concerned about it being in the other topic (which is a good thing).

Im a bit gutted to hear that whilst the original soundtrack are still here, they are only for Acts 4-6. A shame that there is no option for switching between old and new soundtracks as and when (yet anyway, let hope for a patch / update). But it’s also worth bearing in mind the “main” Levels aren’t always limited to Act’s 1, 2 & 3 anyway as the smaller stages get scattered across. So I’m mostly ok with this. 
 

[JezMM]

24 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

Colors power ups as just as shallow as Mario Galaxy power ups. On Mario Galaxy, the power ups are very situational, they are only used in specific sections to solve specific puzzles in only one way available, and they also only last a few seconds. It's the same thing as the wisps. I don't see why Mario Galaxy power ups should have more praise than the Wisps.

To be honest I want to just reply to this with "Mario Galaxy's power-ups are more fun than Sonic Colours' power-ups".  I'm not even 100% sure why, they just are.

But... if I had to make an honest attempt to analyse it - Mario Galaxy's power-ups are way more baked into the course as mandatory components, on par with more of a stage gimmick such as the sling pods or tornadoes in Dusty Dune Galaxy that fling you into the air etc. Galaxy's pacing is already very varied even in courses that don't use power-ups, so stopping to use a power-up doesn't feel particularly at odds with the general gameplay flow (unlike Sonic where they almost always distinctly change the pace of the action), and they're frequently more inventive than Colours in how they're utilised.  I feel like Colours mostly has very "put square peg in square hole" puzzles, where most Wisp usage feels identical no matter which stage you use it on, whereas Galaxy is pretty good at throwing new complications into using the power-ups each time they appear.  There are exceptions in both games - Colours has a few clever moments and Galaxy has a few uninspired busywork bits, but the ratio definitely feels inversed on both games.

 

1 hour ago, Raphael Martins said:

A game being easy isn't the same thing as being bad. There are a lot of amazing games with easy difficulties. Most Mario 3D games are very easy. I've never had a game over on Mario Galaxy. Would it make sense if I say the game it's bad just because of that? This is a shallow criterion.

I also want to respond to this to say that even when Mario is easy, the interactions are often engaging and interesting regardless.  For example, Mario is always coming up with weird ways to cross chasms via unusual platforms and enemies all the way through the game, even though I, as a skilled player, am rarely threatened by them.  I still have to like, use my skill to get across.  My success rate on easy Sonic games may be identical, but it's a lot less engaging to just absent-mindedly hit the A button to cross yet another homing attack chain (as I dream of all those secret Unleashed acts where they actually required us to wait for the right moment, steer towards enemies, avoid homing attacking booby traps, or use the momentum from balloons to sail through the air towards a faraway target.  Such an absolute waste that they dropped all this stuff and never do anything remotely interesting with the homing attack in Colours and Forces, and even Generations only SPARINGLY used a couple of the above.)

 

So again... with both these things it kinda just comes down to "Mario is more fun". Your arguments seem to be ignoring a lot of nuance and detail to these games, like saying "You put tomato slices in a burger and tomatoes are fruit!  Why not put banana slices in?  They're both fruit!" (Sonic Colours is banana slices).

[Wraith]

13 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

Sonic Colors also has shortcuts and alternative paths in the stages, you have to explore the stages and use the wisps to get the red rings and S-ranks. In this game, you are rewarded with exploration, you don't get S-ranks if you only go to the end of the stage as fast as you can, you earn bonus points from collecting the red rings and using the color powers. The Wisps lead Sonic to different sections and hidden locations on the stage.

This all sounds good on paper but in-game it was never enough for me. It was easier to abuse the score bonus you got from using the wisps to get S ranks. Alternate paths are usually few in number, extremely telegraphed and locked behind a pretty basic wisp puzzle instead of being plentiful and skill dependent like the previous games.

The game checks most boxes but you have to really get into the specifics of how it's executed to see why it doesn't work for some people. It's why it's one of the most annoying Sonic games to discuss for me despite it being the "inoffensive" one

13 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

Sonic Colors is as easy as Mario Galaxy and most 3D Mario games. Also, there are a lot of Nintendo games that are even more easy than Sonic Colors, such as the Kirby games. All of them get high scores and praise by the critics.

I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me. I'm talking about my own personal criteria here, so I don't get why you keep bringing critics into it. I'm explaining that I disagree with their scores because I think a decent difficulty curve is more important than they do. I think Kirby games are overrated too for similar reasons(though they're still probably a better buy than a new Sonic game because of the amount of sheer content).

[User18091994]

8 minutes ago, JezMM said:

To be honest I want to just reply to this with "Mario Galaxy's power-ups are more fun than Sonic Colours' power-ups".  I'm not even 100% sure why, they just are.

Fun is a subjective criterion, you can claim a game is better just because you think it's more fun. I could say Shadow the Hedgehog is a better game than Mario Galaxy because I had more fun, and this argument wouldn't be enough to justify this claim.

8 minutes ago, JezMM said:

But... if I had to make an honest attempt to analyse it - Mario Galaxy's power-ups are way more baked into the course as mandatory components, on par with more of a stage gimmick such as the sling pods or tornadoes in Dusty Dune Galaxy that fling you into the air etc. Galaxy's pacing is already very varied even in courses that don't use power-ups, so stopping to use a power-up doesn't feel particularly at odds with the general gameplay flow (unlike Sonic where they almost always distinctly change the pace of the action), and they're frequently more inventive than Colours in how they're utilised.  I feel like Colours mostly has very "put square peg in square hole" puzzles, where most Wisp usage feels identical no matter which stage you use it on, whereas Galaxy is pretty good at throwing new complications into using the power-ups each time they appear.  There are exceptions in both games - Colours has a few clever moments and Galaxy has a few uninspired busywork bits, but the ratio definitely feels inversed on both games.

No, they aren't. For example, there's the fire flower power up. It's only used to light up torches and destroy boxes. How can this be more inventive? Also, Mario Galaxy level design is very linear. You only follow a linear path from planetoid to planetoid, while Sonic Colors wisps lead to alternative pathways and sections that are optional.
 

[BadBehavior]

33 minutes ago, JezMM said:

I agree, but I'm not surprised.  The thing about Colours is that it's a crowd-pleaser, and sometimes crowd-pleaser and "bog standard" can absolutely go hand-in-hand.  But when you're THAT type of crowd-pleaser, I think the critics sort of know it isn't as great as it should be... and that's why it's scraping 70-80 while genuinely great games that could just as well be described as crowd-pleasers like your Marios and Zeldas tend to score 90-100. 

So Colors (and by extension most of Post-Black Knight Sonic) are like the MCU in a sense, just popcorn fluff designed to get people in theater seats? Would that make Forces the Iron Man 2 of this era?

[Indigo Rush]

Here are some of the less positive reviews, for those interested:

 

Push Square: 6/10
Sonic Colors: Ultimate Review (PS4) | Push Square

Quote

Sonic Colors: Ultimate is the best version of an okay game. It's certainly among the hedgehog's better outings since his Genesis heyday, but it suffers from typically frustrating controls and level design. The Wisps provide variety and replay value, and the remaster adds some fun new features in addition to the visual enhancements. This 11-year-old Sonic title is one worth experiencing, but just be aware of its rough edges before you spin dash into the action.

 

GameSkinny: 6/10
Sonic Colors: Ultimate Review — I Guess You Go Fast | Sonic Colors Ultimate (gameskinny.com)

Quote

Sonic Colors: Ultimate brings new visuals and some new bits and bobs from the original release, but it lacks the punch of some other entries to the series.

 

Checkpoint Gaming: 5/10
Sonic Colours: Ultimate Review - Rainbow nostalgia goggles - Checkpoint (checkpointgaming.net)

Quote

Sonic Colours: Ultimate serves as a sad reminder that even the 3D Sonic games that are ‘one of the good ones’ don’t hold up very well. The updated visuals, soundtrack, and gameplay tweaks at least make it a better experience than the original, and some quality of life upgrades make the worst parts marginally less painful. Sonic fans nostalgic for this game will likely still value having this remaster in their collection, but the new customisable options and Rival Rush Mode are simply not enough to make up for what Sonic Colours lacks. It’s hardly what we were hoping to get from Sonic’s 30th anniversary.

 

[Tracker_TD]

3 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

You only follow a linear path from planetoid to planetoid, while Sonic Colors wisps lead to alternative pathways and sections that are optional.

This doesn't make much sense to me given Mario Galaxy has shedloads of secret stars that are all based around taking a different route through a given mission of your own accord. Like that Boo in a Box one, off the top of my head. And finding those feels like some genuine "oh cool this was hidden here all along!" stuff and not "ok good I used a Wisp to get to another path for a Red Ring and little else"

[User18091994]

Just now, Tracker_TD said:

This doesn't make much sense to me given Mario Galaxy has shedloads of secret stars that are all based around taking a different route through a given mission of your own accord. Like that Boo in a Box one, off the top of my head. And finding those feels like some genuine "oh cool this was hidden here all along!" stuff and not "ok good I used a Wisp to get to another path for a Red Ring and little else"

They aren't on different routes or different pathways, you do things like feeding a hungry luma star with starbits, and it sends you to a planetoid where you get something secret, and then you go back to the linear path again. A hidden planetoid it's not the same thing as different routes or pathways.

[KHCast]

Just now, Raphael Martins said:

They aren't on different routes or different pathways, you do things like feeding a hungry luma star with starbits, and it sends you to a planetoid where you get something secret, and then you go back to the linear path again. A hidden planetoid it's not the same thing as different routes or pathways.

Probably helps that fundamentally the goals of Galaxy differ greatly from Colors. Colors, your goal is to get to the end of the stage, and so it’s only natural multiple pathways to get there will be a thing

 

Galaxy, doesn’t have that same goal. It’s just: collect stars that are scattered in that specific location to advance to the next group of galaxies. You’re put in a playground of sorts and are looking for a star. Most of them yes are pretty linear in obtaining, as the stage guides you that direction, however there are hidden stars that you may have to go out of your way to collect, which is Galaxy’s version of “multiple paths”

 

[Tracker_TD]

7 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

They aren't on different routes or different pathways, you do things like feeding a hungry luma star with starbits, and it sends you to a planetoid where you get something secret, and then you go back to the linear path again. A hidden planetoid it's not the same thing as different routes or pathways.

No, that isn't how that works. Usually the star is the subject of the hidden route, so you don't just end up going back to the same linear path afterwards until you start the next star; and even then, Galaxy still mixes things up per mission in terms of where you travel anyway.

Putting the Galaxy tangent aside, I do agree with others that there's not some silly conspiracy to rate Sonic games worse for being Sonic. Shit, I don't even think Unleashed's rating was unjustified, though often even if I see myself agreeing with a review's score I may not agree with the reasons for it. 

[JezMM]

21 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

Fun is a subject criterion, you can claim a game is better just because you think it's more fun. I could say Shadow the Hedgehog is a better game than Mario Galaxy because I had more fun, and this argument wouldn't be enough to justify this claim.

No, they aren't. For example, there's the fire flower power up. It's only used to light up torches and destroy boxes. How can this be more inventive? Also, Mario Galaxy level design is very linear. You only follow a linear path from planetoid to planetoid, while Sonic Colors wisps lead to alternative pathways and sections that are optional.
 

If we're going to dismiss fun as mattering to discussion of video games we're on two different planets I'm afraid, especially when I'm doing my best to explain exactly what objective qualities contribute to me finding one more fun than the other.

As for the specific example of the fire flower power-up:

• It's regularly used in situations where reaching the torch/box in question within the time limit is the real meat of the gameplay, so in those cases it's actually the level design between you and the torch which is more significant than the action at the end - and whether you can be clever and utilise the fact that you have a projectile to throw to achieve that goal sooner than running right up to the torch/box.
• Other times, again, it is about the level design, where the shape of the geometry or obstacles means aiming your projectile is a challenge in itself.  Sometimes this can make it tricky to light/destroy everything with a single fire flower - in some of the harder challenges, doing so is mandatory, in some of the easier ones, it can be a satisfying effort to do everything in a single attempt without having to backtrack to the fire flower to get another one.  These kinds of divergences in experience on each play are just as valuable as the multiple routes of a Sonic game.
• There are also situations where you are aiming for one objective, but the other enemies in the way will intercept your fireballs.  You have the choice to take them out to clear the way, avoid them, or do a bit of both at once.
• There are sections that require you to use the power-up on a moving platform, where timing becomes as important as aiming.
• And finally there are sections where you're just surrounded by targets (usually optional sections for fun/goodies where you only get one try or something) and careful control of where you throw is required, as throwing a fireball into an area with no targets that you've already covered will waste time while the fireball despawns before you can throw another.

Often, a single course will use several of the above elements, slowly building on the complexity of the challenges in classic 3D Mario course design style.

 

In Sonic Colours, the multiple routes rarely compelled me, since they all pretty much felt the same to play anyway.  Definitely exceptions, but generally my choices felt like they always boiled down to "ignore the wisps and play a very uninteresting Sonic Unleashed level, or keep stopping to do unchallenging little Wisp tasks in order to reach a slightly different very uninteresting Sonic Unleashed level".  Every path has the same bland platforming, homing attack chains and boost-to-win straightways.

Bare in mind that I'm not directly comparing the two games here.  "Mario Galaxy is fun to me for these reasons" and "Sonic Colours isn't fun to me for these reasons" are entirely seperate thoughts.  I don't even think the two should really be compared that much, they have extremely different goals and gameplay experiences in mind.

[Kazhnuz]

I love Sonic Colors, but I don't think that it would get 90~100. TBH, I find that the 70~80 is kinda perfect for what the game it : it's not a "instant classic", but it's a nice game where you'll have a lot of fun with it if you like that kind of stuff (like most Sonic, in a way), but that have some flaws that won't make it a 90~100, and everybody explained those flaws in a good way, so I won't repeat them XD

And if some other IP get better note for game that might be "less good" (even that is subject to question IMO), well it's mostly an inherent issue of notation (and not only in judging creations...) more than everybody being biased against an IP, imo. There isn't some kind of universal scale for every game notation, so well, it's kinda normal for me.

[KHCast]

30 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

Here are some of the less positive reviews, for those interested:

 

Push Square: 6/10
Sonic Colors: Ultimate Review (PS4) | Push Square

 

GameSkinny: 6/10
Sonic Colors: Ultimate Review — I Guess You Go Fast | Sonic Colors Ultimate (gameskinny.com)

 

Checkpoint Gaming: 5/10
Sonic Colours: Ultimate Review - Rainbow nostalgia goggles - Checkpoint (checkpointgaming.net)

 

Honestly, looking at even just the quoted segments, these critiques seem pretty valid and in line even with what many on here have said about how they feel about the game lol.

[User18091994]

24 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Probably helps that fundamentally the goals of Galaxy differ greatly from Colors. Colors, your goal is to get to the end of the stage, and so it’s only natural multiple pathways to get there will be a thing

 

Galaxy, doesn’t have that same goal. It’s just: collect stars that are scattered in that specific location to advance to the next group of galaxies. You’re put in a playground of sorts and are looking for a star. Most of them yes are pretty linear in obtaining, as the stage guides you that direction, however there are hidden stars that you may have to go out of your way to collect, which is Galaxy’s version of “multiple paths”

 

Mario 64 and Mario Odyssey have similar goals to Galaxy, and they don't have linear levels. Actually, it's a pretty weird justification to say a game that the main goal it's exploration instead of only going to the end of the stage it's the reason why it's linear.

20 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

No, that isn't how that works. Usually the star is the subject of the hidden route, so you don't just end up going back to the same linear path afterwards until you start the next star; and even then, Galaxy still mixes things up per mission in terms of where you travel anyway.

Putting the Galaxy tangent aside, I do agree with others that there's not some silly conspiracy to rate Sonic games worse for being Sonic. Shit, I don't even think Unleashed's rating was unjustified, though often even if I see myself agreeing with a review's score I may not agree with the reasons for it. 

Can you provide a gameplay video of a Mario Galaxy stage that you have alternative pathways, because I've finished both Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 and the stages are very linear, the only thing that resembles alternative pathways are hidden planetoids that you can reach, but then you go back to the main path again.
 

18 minutes ago, JezMM said:

If we're going to dismiss fun as mattering to discussion of video games we're on two different planets I'm afraid, especially when I'm doing my best to explain exactly what objective qualities contribute to me finding one more fun than the other.

When we are debating how well a game it's designed, you have to use better arguments than: "I had more fun playing", because people could have fun playing all sort of things. I could have fun playing bad games. This week I played Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric that's an awful and poorly designed game, but I had fun because I was curious about the game. You can't say a game is better designed just because you have more fun playing it.
 

18 minutes ago, JezMM said:

In Sonic Colours, the multiple routes rarely compelled me, since they all pretty much felt the same to play anyway.  Definitely exceptions, but generally my choices felt like they always boiled down to "ignore the wisps and play a very uninteresting Sonic Unleashed level, or keep stopping to do unchallenging little Wisp tasks in order to reach a slightly different very uninteresting Sonic Unleashed level".  Every path has the same bland platforming, homing attack chains and boost-to-win straightways.

Bare in mind that I'm not directly comparing the two games here.  "Mario Galaxy is fun to me for these reasons" and "Sonic Colours isn't fun to me for these reasons" are entirely seperate thoughts.  I don't even think the two should really be compared that much, they have extremely different goals and gameplay experiences in mind.

Again, this is your personal preference, and this is valid, but you can't say the game isn't well-designed and well-crafted just because you don't enjoy the approach.